Henman's chasing a return to fast courts

Tim Henman would like to see a reversal in the trend of slowing down courts at major tournaments around the world.

After finishing 2004 with an exhibition one-set defeat by Sweden's Joachim Johansson on the Royal Albert Hall's fast indoor court, Henman said: "It is a real shame we can't play here more often."

The surface benefited bigserving Johansson, but Henman said: "We never play on anything like that any more, unfortunately.

"It is much more how the game was 10 years ago. The serve and volley was much more common because that is the most effective way to play on courts like this, but now the game has changed so much, and so many people just play from the baseline."

Henman finished the year ranked sixth in the world but added: "I look at some events where I could have been more disciplined with my style, and that is something I will continue to work on. There is no question that I can do things better next year."

With his wife Lucy expecting their second child in a fortnight, he intends to take this month off and will have just one warm-up event, the Kooyong Exhibition Tournament in Melbourne, before the Australian Open.

Even though Henman lost, the Kids at Heart charity will benefit by more than £80,000.

Meanwhile, Roger Federer is also planning a break following his Masters Cup victory in Houston last week which took his year's winnings to nearly £4million. But British players are still involved in a mad scramble for ranking points.

Greg Rusedski reached the quarterfinals of a Challenger event in Luxembourg last week while Arvind Parmar competed in Groningen and Richard Barker won a doubles title in Colombia.

Amanda Janes was playing in Poland, Kirsty Woolley was in Pretoria, and Karen Paterson and Hannah Collin secured the women's doubles title of a £13,000 event in Mexico.